I have lived in the United States for 6 years, mostly in upstate New York. I visited New York and saw different sights and neighborhoods. This tour of the city which I somehow knew put the city in a new perspective for me. This perspective is about the city as migrant city. Our guide, Andy, took us through the city following the doings and daily public lives of migrants, both in the past and present. The tour showed us political, social and economic life still visible in the streets, buildings and people of New York. The perspective of the past in the present we have walked opened a new dimension to us. From East Village to Queens we followed the migrants in their movements, in the places they shopped, in the buildings they worked and lived. We saw the uncanny changes: For instance, Jewish progressive newspaper, Forward, with its alliance with the working classes is now turned into luxury condos, where America Ferrera lives, showing how gentrification pushes the working class migrant communities out. Then we went to Queens to look at the history from the perspective of the present. We saw the new migrant neighborhoods, from diverse corners of the world. It is like witnessing the history in the making as the guide leads us through the streets of this new migrant space.
Migrants are the working classes of New York. This has always been that way. This tour bares the real stories of the real people of New York. It is like reading a book, and the guide reads the city for you, shows you its real people, walks you through a social history from below. This is about not the spectacular monuments, and the riches of New York that you would generally get in a tour. It is about the corners of conflict, of exchange, of struggle, and of gathering that everyday people made and continue to make. I highly recommend it for the curious strangers to this city.